How to make text run top-to-bottom in CSS?

Kenneth Johns picture Kenneth Johns · Feb 4, 2009 · Viewed 35.9k times · Source

Does anyone know how to make text align top-to-bottom in a div.

SO won't even let me demonstrate it . . . I just want the letters to stack on top of each other in a vertical line down the page like the stories of a building. Was hoping I didn't need to do it with an image.

Answer

Having your text run along vertical lines WITHOUT HACKS

writing-mode

CSS writing-mode attribute lets your text run vertically.

.traditional-vertical-writing
{
  writing-mode: vertical-rl;
}
<p class="traditional-vertical-writing">
  This text runs vertically.<br>
  『只是』 ((but the thing is)),since Latin alphabets are not for vertical writing,
  not only the lines but each of the non-vertical-writing letters also gets rotated.<br>
  0123456789
</p>


text-orientation

If you don't want non-vertical-writing letters to rotate themselves in vertical lines, you may use CSS text-orientation attribute as well.

.vertical-writing
{
  writing-mode: vertical-rl;
  text-orientation: upright;
}
<p class="vertical-writing">
  This text runs vertically.<br>
  『それに』 ((and in addition))、now you don't have to turn your head 90 degrees clockwise
  to read these non-vertical-writing letters!<br>
  0123456789
</p>


And if you’re to do some tate-chuu-yoko[1][2][3] (a bit of horizontal writing while writing vertically),

consider using text-combine-upright.